Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”/Let us go and make our visit.

July Miscellany, with music by Jaeger, Mattingly & Trapani & performances by Dhegrae & Contemporaneous

That’s Robert Louis Stevenson contemplating the proceedings, courtesy John Singer Sargent. The proceedings include, among other things, El café by Joaquín Torres-García and the Cabinet of Geology and Mineralogy from the announcement of a project by Mark Dion at Vassar College.

Next are images of two ancient vases accompanied by a cut-up wrapper, seeds, and labels.

Last, Braque’s The Terrace at the Hotel Mistral (1907) is paired with Matisse’s Pink Onions (1906-07), both accompanied, among other things, by a sticker of a flying machine from Lisbon and a ticket to the Palatine Chapel, Palermo.

“Resignation” takes its title from the American folk melody of the same name, better known as the tune for the Christian hymn, “My Shepherd Will Supply My Need,” with words, by Isaac Watts (1675-1748), paraphrasing Psalm 23. My song is built of fragments of text and music from the hymn—re-ordered and frozen (as if film stills), and repeated.

I’m curious about the music you’ve shared here but I’ll have to wait for a peaceful moment to listen. In the meantime it’s a pleasure seeing more of your collages. I like what you’ve done with lines in the first one. The last one is rather stately, calm and pleasant. I really like the jagged lines in the Francesca/Gris piece. I like your color scheme there. In some photos the Gris painting looks very orange–not sure how accurate that is. But I love that you saved only a piece of orange like some kind of oversize candle or pointing extension of the figure’s arm. The one with the vases is a real standout for me. it packs a nice wallop. Love what you did with shapes nestled inside shapes–the layered effect of cutouts and overlays. The colors and movement work great in that one.

Mark: I really do love how you see, and you invariably help me to see better. The vase collage, though I didn’t start out with this in mind, is the most challenging I’ve attempted, notably because of the layering. I’ve been trying since to build on what I tried for there, but so far I haven’t come close. The process, nonetheless, is always worthwhile in and of itself–one of the things I’ve been discovering is how hard it is to use strong colors well. I definitely have a long way to go with that.

I found your collages absorbing – particularly the first!
I didn’t know about Stranger Love. I checked out the link. The music sounds interesting. The scenario reminded me of the kind of preoccupations Tippett worked into his operas.

For a variety of reasons, I’m only now catching up with everything I’ve wanted to enjoy — including your Grant Wood piece. So, I’ll add just a word here. What surprised me most about that post was how clearly it brought into focus the ways agriculture has changed in the past fifty or seventy-five years. When I was growing up in Iowa, corn cribs, hay mows, corn shocks in the fields, and corn planted in rows widely enough separated for high school kids to detassle the crop were standard. Today, the face of the fields has changed. “Knee high by the Fourth of July” is out the window, as growth rates and yields increase. It’s a mixed bag of problems and progress, but it certainly was interesting to suddenly “see” it through Wood’s art.

I really enjoyed these collages, too. The combination of orange, red, and blue in the first is bold, but not overwhelming. The only thing I can’t figure out is why such a cheerful collection should bring to mind the cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

In the second, I was so certain you’d imposed Oreos on the bottom right vase I still see them, even though I now realize they’re shields. I like the arc of the seeds, and the lunar imagery. It must have taken some time to get those layered vases just right.

I must say, Battista Sforza looks as though he’s about to cut off his nose — to spite his face? And the last looks positively homey. Perhaps its the combination of that button and the needle threader (is it a needle threader?). They’re all fun to contemplate, especially since they aren’t immediately open to interpretation.

shoreacres: Your window in to changes in the Iowa agriculture/landscape over time vis-a-vis the Grant Wood paintings is wonderful. Your Dr. Caligari comment made me laugh–I hadn’t thought of that association, but I love that you did. When I went back and looked, I could see the oreo-look of those shields, very funny. Yes, you’re right it took some time to get those layers right. I’ve recently tried another with (for me) complex layering, and I realized probably the only way I could figure out how to paste things down was to take a photo of the pieces as I’d laid them out. It’s a good thing I did, or the complications would have been insurmountable. You are right, that is a needle threader. The wire for threading needles broke off, so it became collage material.

David: Well, it keeps me entertained in the “off hours,” anyway. And re Lucy, I’m so pleased you commented as you did, because I included those two samples of Lucy’s singing precisely because I was struck by that versatility.

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